Priceline Group says fifth of room nights on Booking.com go to business travellers

Booking.com is seeing a continued shift in the split between types of users on the service – with 20% going the way of business travellers.

Umbrella company, The Priceline Group, says in its full year earnings report today it is “feeling positive” about the changes it has made in recent months to attract more business travellers.

For example, travellers are now asked what their trip is for (leisure or business) so that properties with corporate travel-type amenities are served in search results.

The company also says its business travel-related bookings are growing faster than those from leisure travellers.

Booking.com doesn’t give an actual figure, but has previously claimed “tens of thousands” of businesses have signed up to Booking.com For Business platform – an interface for travel managers within a company to organise travel on behalf of employees and keep track of reservations.

Meanwhile, another of Priceline Group’s big initiatives of the past 12 months – integration with TripAdvisor’s Instant Booking service, first announced in October last year – is still “in its early days” but that executives are happy with the partnership.

President and CEO of The Priceline Group, Darren Huston, says there is no negative impact on the company’s financial performance as a result of allowing bookings to take place on TripAdvisor, rather than on the mothership.

Bookings via TripAdvisor as a percentage of the overall pie are in the “low single-digits”, Huston says.

Nevertheless, Huston adds that the branding that Priceline Group-run companies get on TripAdvisor is “great”, and that in the US this may have helped raise the profile of Booking.com, where traditionally Priceline has been the better known brand.

Overall, Priceline Group says gross travel bookings increased by 12.67% to $12 billion in the last quarter of 2015.

For the full year, gross bookings increased by 10% to $55.5 billion.

Gross profit is up 12% to $1.9 billion, whilst operating expenses climbed by 11.5% to $1.2 billion, with $8.6 billion for the full year.